At the ripe of age of 167 years, Kilmore’s famous Red Lion statue died on Thursday.
Mr Lion faced ill-health for many years, slowly losing parts of his limbs, as he stood atop the Red Lion Hotel.
The sights and sounds that Mr Lion would have witnessed in his lifetime made him a beast with vast knowledge of Kilmore, its businesses, residents and visitors.
But he was a great keeper of secrets, and whatever he witnessed in Sydney Street and surrounds, and the hotel he stood atop, he took to his grave.
All the shenanigans that took place at Red Lion Hotel kept Mr Lion entertained over the years, but it was when patrons would climb atop the two-storey hotel to meet him personally that brought him the greatest joy.
Since Mitchell Shire Council last month ordered he be removed due to imposing a safety risk to pedestrians, many stories have emerged from several people who have in fact ridden Mr Lion.
One local grandmother contacted the Review to tell of her family connection to Mr Lion – with four consecutive generations who have dared to climb onto the roof and take on the somewhat dangerous feat of riding the lion.
The first was a man, born locally in 1886, had gained his climbing skills by trying to catch koalas on his way home from school.
These early days of the hotel, built in 1856, was when Mr Lion was in his hey-day as a fit, healthy and proud beast. But it was also the days were there wasn’t a veranda on the pub to break the fall of anyone who dared straddle the lion, who stood precariously close to the edge.
The second generation of the family, born in 1921, rode Mr Lion in the days when the hotel did have a veranda, added in 1924.
The grandmother, who wished to remain anonymous, said his climb had occurred after a Kilmore Football Club win and ‘no doubt a belly full of beer’.
She said the next, born 1961, was a dare devil, and although the cracks were beginning to appear in Mr Lion by this time, he became the third generation of the family to claim the feat.
By this stage of Mr Lion’s life, he had become a centurion, and survived a truck crashing into the hotel veranda in 1969.
Several members of the fourth generation of the local family, egged on by their grandfather in his twilight years, climbed atop Mr Lion in the 1990s – it is thought the ageing icon was only held together by paint by then.
The grandmother admitted while it was sad to see Mr Lion’s demise, she was in fact happy he was removed so that the family’s fifth generation would remain ‘on the ground’.
‘Riding Red’ was an accomplishment of many, many people in Kilmore – a risky undertaking with most no doubt inebriated while doing so.
It is of course expected that inebriated people frequent a hotel, but the Red Lion Hotel has been so much more to Kilmore over many years, until its closure in 2020.
The hotel was built by Irishman John Butler, who was a leading Kilmore citizen and a councillor of the first Kilmore Municipal Council.
In fact, the first council elections were announced from the hotel’s balcony in 1856.
A fire in 1968 destroyed the kitchen and dining room, along with several other rooms at the hotel, but Mr Lion survived.
Mr Lion well and truly earnt his badge as a survivor over the years – how he put up with Kilmore’s weather for nearly 170 years, no one will ever know.
The hotel’s long history includes many family celebrations over the years, and it was once a popular nightspot attracting young people from far and wide.
It also hit the news headlines in the early 2000s when it emerged that Melbourne’s criminal underworld figure Tony Mokbel was linked to the ownership of the hotel.
In many ways the Red Lion Hotel and Mr Lion have become the symbol of Kilmore.
Kilmore Historical Society’s Francis Payne said the statue was a symbol of Kilmore’s identity – the town’s equivalent of Big Ben in London.
“If you grew up here, you grew up aware of the Lion,” he said.
The historical society had hoped Mr Lion could be removed, restored and preserved but it was not to be.
Decades of poor maintenance and neglect caused the unfortunate death of Mr Lion, who was falling to pieces, and literally crumbled on his return to the ground.
It was a sad ending for the proud icon, who would have been shattered that his falling body parts had caused such a danger to the passing people of Kilmore – a town he had kept a close eye on for the past 167 years.
Rest in Peace Mr Lion.
